Live
by Somewhere In Time
Summary: Post DH. Harry's at the Burrow after the Battle. How do you think Harry feels after Voldemort's death? Happy? Sad? Disappointed? Oneshot, Harry and Ginny. T because they're teens.


Harry Potter, the boy who lived.

So they called him.

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There was a stifling silence to the air. It suffocated him. But there was nowhere else for him to run. This place was the closest thing he could call a home.

Harry raised his eyes to the gray sky, but there was no comfort there. He looked down at the scruffy tufts of yellowing grass in the dust, but again, there was no comfort there. He gathered his blazer around him and rubbed his chilly arms. But the cold wasn't simply external.

Everything still seemed so unreal. The battle seemed like a mere nightmare, and when he woke up, he'd still be in his four-poster bed in Griffindor tower, Ron hovering next to him. His hand strayed to the lightning shaped scar on his forehead and rubbed it absentmindedly. The fact that it would never pain him again seemed absurd. The funerals…he just couldn't believe it. But this past week was painfully real. The tears, the silence…

The Burrow was eerily quiet. No longer did the twins' room shake with explosions, no longer were any jokes cracked. At the table, everyone avoided looking at the one chair left empty. Conversation was essentially nonexistent. Harry didn't even try to cheer the family, that role had always been Fred and George's.

But George was in no state to cheer anyone. He was the very embodiment of gloom, like a shoe missing its pair, or a lost glove trampled alone in the middle of a slushy street. It was just one person, but the now-empty place Fred used to fill threatened to engulf the people he had left behind.

Harry missed George's happy disposition. He missed Fred.

The only place left to run was the desolate yard. And there Harry was now, hoping the wind and the sky would wipe away the heavy darkness settling silently on his shoulders. Six days. Twenty-four hours. The darkness had only gotten thicker, strangling him.

It was, after all, partly _his_ fault that Fred was gone…

The weather was gray, but there was no rain. The ever-present dull ache twisted in the middle of his stomach, threatening terror. Harry stared blankly into the gnome-infested hedge. _… Wow, Harry, that must have been fifty feet! …_

Instinctively, he clenched his fists. His eyes burned dry.

"Hi."

A soft voice sounded next to him, and Harry looked up. He replied in kind.

"Hey."

Ginny Weasley sat down next to him on the concrete gray back steps, her fiery red hair swishing behind her back.

A long silence issued between them.

"Penny for your thoughts, Harry." she finally said quietly.

"Huh? Oh, sorry, Ginny."

Harry stared at the hedge again, but Ginny knew he wasn't really looking at it for what it was. A gnome poked its ugly head out of its hole, rustling the leaves, but Harry didn't even flinch.

"Earth to Harry, Earth to Harry, are you in there?" Ginny gazed worriedly at Harry as she waved her hand in front of his face.

When Harry's eyes finally came into focus, she put her hands on her hips in an angry gesture.

"Will you _please _stop zoning out on me and tell me what's going on?"

Harry managed to crack a smile for her. All his muscles seemed to cry out in pain as they moved in a way they hadn't for weeks. "I'm sorry Ginny. I was just thinking."

"About what?" Ginny laid a hand on his knee.

Harry looked away. "It's nothing."

"Harry." Ginny's voice was firm. "You've been moping around ever since we got here, and you expect me to believe that?"

Harry was mildly surprised.

"You noticed?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "_Everyone _noticed. Now, are you going to tell me or not?"

He still hesitated.

"I don't know… It's sort of stupid…"

Ginny sighed. "Tell me," she demanded.

She leaned closer to him, her hand still on his knee, and Harry caught a trace of the faint flowery scent again.

"I don't know, it's just that…"

Harry stopped, and Ginny impatiently waited for him to pick up the thread of conversation.

He glanced at his girlfriend, who was looking at him expectantly.

"You'd say I was crazy."

Ginny scoffed.

"I wouldn't care."

The flowery scent gently pushed away the darkness's stranglehold as Ginny leaned challengingly until they were almost nose-to-nose.

"Fine."

Harry looked down at the ground, staring at his well-worn sneakers.

"When I defeated Voldemort, at first I was just glad everything was over."

She nodded. He rubbed his shoe on the ground, making little circles in the dust.

"But… But then I wondered. Why am I still here? I defeated Voldemort. Now what? Ever since I found out about him my only aim was to defeat him. Defeat him so he couldn't hurt anyone."

He laughed dryly. "So he couldn't hurt anyone… And look at what I've done. I've killed so many people. I've _destroyed_ entire families."

"Harry, what are you talking about?" Ginny's brow furrowed. "_Destroyed? _You single-handedly defeated Lord Voldemort! You ended his reign of terror!"

His piercingly green eyes painfully burned into Ginny's warm brown ones.

"Did I? Everyone I ever cared for _suffered_ because of me. Fred, Colin, Lupin, Tonks, Sirius… _Dobby_ – I'm guilty. Their blood is on _my_ hands. You can't tell me it's not my fault. Even Dumbledore – "

"I _can_ tell you that it wasn't your fault!"

Ginny glared at him, daring him to disagree. "You think they'd be fine if Voldemort was still alive? They'd have fought against him with or without you!"

Harry cast about wildly, his voice taking on a frenzied tone.

"I should have found another way…Lupin was right, Fred and George shouldn't have been allowed to join…"

"That's what this is about, isn't it? Fred…"

"I was there, I was _right there _and I didn't do anything. If I had been paying better attention – "

"And then what? There was nothing you could have done!"

"And Teddy… Another orphan because of a stupid war – "

"It wasn't stupid!"

Ginny shouted into Harry's face, her expression blazing. She grabbed him by the collar of his blazer and glared at him. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. She took several deep breaths, and when she spoke, her voice was considerably more level.

"It wasn't stupid. You of all people should know that. Did Dumbledore teach you nothing? You're Teddy's godfather. He still has you, and he has a loving grandmother to bring him up. He'll be proud of what his father has done someday. And Fred…" Her eyes swam in sudden tears, and her voice started to waver, but she clenched her jaw and went on. "Fred would have been proud of himself too. Even if he's not…here…if he was, he wouldn't…wouldn't want us to keep moping over him."

Her voice cracked near the end of her sentence. Angrily, she swiped away the tears.

"What about George?" Harry asked quietly.

Ginny bit her lip. "He'll…he'll get over it. He's not one to brood too long…"

They both knew that until now, it was only because the twins could joke with each other and make things all right in their world.

Harry gazed up at the featureless sky for a long moment.

"Ginny…"

He returned his gaze to her face. He tentatively touched her cheek and rubbed away the faint tear tracks that remained. "Ginny. Now what?"

"Now…" She reached up and covered Harry's hand with hers. "You live."

Cradling Ginny's hand in his, Harry said, "I miss them."

"I know."

"They…didn't deserve to die…"

Ginny nodded, and a tear splashed onto Harry's hand. Harry's burning eyes sought the rain already filling Ginny's. Ginny's eyebrows trembled as the basin threatened to spill over. She gazed at him, squeezing his hands.

"Cry, cry… it's okay to cry…"

The floodgates unlocked.

Ginny's arms were warm around him. He did not know whose tears were falling down his cheeks, wetting the ground below them.

A flash of light gleamed briefly on their tears, followed by a deafening roar. The sky opened its arms and let everything fall. The thirsty ground threw back her head and drank deeply. The drought was over.

The rain swept over both of them, continually drenching them long after their tears died away. Both dared not let go of the other lest the comfort they longed for would slip away. Tranquility cocooned their hearts, the calm broken only by the healing rain, refilling the gaping holes.

As abruptly as it had come, the rain ceased and the clouds moved on. A watery shaft of sunlight diffidently shone through the scattered remainder of gray.

They sat there in silence for a long time, Ginny's head on Harry's shoulders, his head on Ginny's, both soaked to the bone. The crickets quietly began to sing in the background.

Ginny was the one to break the silence.

"Do you remember that song I made for you on Valentines Day five years ago?" she asked, glancing up into his eyes.

"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad," recited Harry.

Ginny giggled. "His hair is as black as a backboard," she sang. With a shared look, they chanted the last line together.

"I wish he was mine, he's really divine, the hero who conquered the Dark Lord."

They both fell over laughing.

"_Definitely_ one of the most humiliating days of my life," Harry said. "I couldn't have forgotten it if I wanted to."

Ginny's face was serious again. "That's what you are, and always will be, Harry. The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."

"But that wasn't just me, I had a lot of help – "

"Stop being so modest Harry. You _were_ the one to stop him, and nothing can change that. But that's not all you can be." She spoke with a fierce look, the very look she had when they had first kissed.

"You aren't some _weapon_ to be used and tossed… You're so much more than that…"

They were close. They were so close to crossing that threshold he had been so afraid he would never get the chance to cross again. For a second he faltered. Then he didn't care. The curse had lifted, and she was his to love as freely as he wished.

They drew away slowly.

"I missed that," Ginny murmured. "I missed that so much."

Harry smiled. "I was afraid I'd never get to do that again."

"Me too," she replied. She attempted to straighten out the dark bangs hanging heavily over his forehead. She burst out laughing.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Your hair's all on end!" she managed to say before she was again overcome by a fit of giggles. Harry felt his hair with his hand and let out a chuckle. He tucked a wet strand of Ginny's now dark red hair behind her ear.

"We'd better get inside and change."

He stood up first and held out a hand to help her up. The both turned and walked to the door. She tried unsuccessfully to dust off her wet pants before gazing behind her.

"Things always look greener after rain," she mused.

Harry looked around at the trees and the grass. "Yeah…"

Ginny reached out and hugged his waist. She grinned up at Harry.

"Now, Harry, **we live**."


End file.
